Mashpedia is an interesting service that matches reference articles from Wikipedia to materials from other sources like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Digg, and the web in general. The purpose of drawing materials from multiple sources is to provide users with a comprehensive view of news stories and reference topics.

Here’s how Mashpedia worked when I searched for “Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill.” When I entered my search, Mashpedia returned results from Wikipedia, Digg, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter. As a part of the same results page Mashpedia also returned collections of blog stories, news articles, general images from across the web, and books related to my topic. All of the results from a search on Mashpedia appear as categories on one page.

Applications for Education
Mashpedia could be a great resource for a current events class. By offering video and image results, Mashpedia provides materials that can be accessed by almost all students regardless of reading level. By listing links from multiple sources students can quickly compare news stories to what real people are saying about a story.

Mashpedia is also useful as a starting place in a student’s quest for multimedia resources about a reference topic such as Winter Olympics or World War II.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Search Cube – Six Sided Visual Search
Spezify – Visual Search Engine
Beyond Google – Improve Your Search Results